Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
AMERICANS ALL
STORIES OF AMERICAN LIFE OF TO-DAY
EDITED BY
BENJAMIN A. HEYDRICK
Editor "Types of the Short Story," etc.
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY. N. J.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For permission to reprint the stories in this volume, acknowledgement is
made to the owners of the copyrights, as follows:
For "The Right Promethean Fire," to Mrs. Atwood, R. Martin and
Doubleday, Page & Company.
For "The Land of Heart's Desire," to Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company.
For "The Tenor," to Alice I. Bunner and to Charles Scribners' Sons.
For "The Passing of Priscilla Winthrop," to William Allen White and The
Macmillan Company.
For "The Gift of the Magi," to Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company.
For "The Gold Brick," copyright 1910, to Brand Whitlock and to The
Bobbs, Merrill Company.
For "His Mother's Son," to Edna Ferber and the Frederick A. Stokes
Company.
For "Bitter-Sweet," to Fannie Hurst and Harper & Brothers.
For "The Riverman," to Stewart Edward White and Doubleday, Page &
Company.
For "Flint and Fire," to Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Messrs. Henry Holt
& Company.
For "The Ordeal at Mt. Hope," to Mrs. Alice Dunbar, Mrs. Mathilde
Dunbar, and Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Company.
For "Israel Drake," to Katherine Mayo and Messrs. Houghton Mifflin
Company.
For "The Struggles and Triumph of Isidro," to James M. Hopper.
For "The Citizen," to James F. Dwyer and the Paget Literary Agency.
PREFACE
In the years before the war, when we had more time for light pursuits, a
favorite sport of reviewers was to hunt for the Great American Novel.
They gave tongue here and there, and pursued the quarry with great
excitement in various directions, now north, now south, now west, and
the inevitable disappointment at the end of the chase never deterred
them from starting off on a fresh scent next day. But in spite of all
the frenzied pursuit, the game sought, the Great American Novel, was
never captured. Will it ever be captured? The thing they sought was a
book that would be so broad, so typical, so true that it would stand as
the adequate expression in fiction of American life. Did these tireless
hunters ever stop to ask themselves, what is the Great French Novel?
what is the Great English Novel? And if neither of these nations has
produced a single book which embodies their national life, why should we
expect that our life, so much more diverse in its elements, so
multifarious in its aspects, could ever be summed up within the covers
of a single book?
Yet while the critics continued their hopeless hunt, there was growing
up in this country a form of fiction which gave promise of some day
achieving the task that this never-to-be written novel should
accomplish. This form was the short story. It was the work of many
hands, in many places. Each writer studied closely a certain locality,
and transcribed faithfully what he saw. Thus the New England village,
the western ranch, the southern plantation, all had their chroniclers.
Nor was it only various localities that we saw in these one-reel
pictures; they dealt with typical occupations, there were stories of
travelling salesmen, stories of lumbermen, stories of politicians,
stories of the stage, stories of school and college days. If it were
possible to bring together in a single volume a group of these, each one
reflecting faithfully one facet of our many-sided life, would not such a
book be a truer picture of America than any single novel could present?
The present volume is an attempt to do this. That it is only an attempt,
that it does not cover the whole field of our national life, no one
realizes better than the compiler. The title _Americans All_ signifies
that the characters in the book are all Americans, not that they are all
of the Americans.
This book then differs in its purpose from other collections of short
stories. It does not aim to present the world's best short stories, nor
to illustrate the development of the form from Roman times to our own
day, nor to show how the technique of Poe differs from that of Irving:
its purpose is none of these things, but rather to use the short story
as a means of interpreting American life. Our country is so vast that
few of us know more than a small corner of it, and even in that corner
we do not know all our fellow-citizens; differences of color, of race,
of creed, of fortune, keep us in separate strata. But through books we
may learn to know our fellow-citizens, and the knowledge will make us
better Americans.
The story by Dorothy Canfield has a unique interest for the student, in
that it is followed by the author's own account of how it was written,
from the first glimpse of the theme to the final typing of the story.
Teachers who use this book for studying the art of short story
construction may prefer to begin with "Flint and Fire" and follow with
"The Citizen," tracing in all the others indications of the authors'
methods.
BENJAMIN A. HEYDRICK.
NEW YORK CITY,
March, 1920.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. IN SCHOOL DAYS
THE RIGHT PROMETHEAN FIRE _George Madden Martin_ 3
Sketch of George Madden Martin 16
II. JUST KIDS
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE _Myra Kelly_ 21
Sketch of Myra Kelly 37
III. HERO-WORSHIP
THE TENOR _H. C. Bunner_ 41
Sketch of H. C. Bunner 54
IV. SOCIETY IN OUR TOWN
THE PASSING OF PRISCILLA WINTHROP _William Allen White_ 59
Sketch of William Allen White 73
V. A PAIR OF LOVERS
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI _O. Henry_ 79
Sketch of O. Henry 86
VI. IN POLITICS
THE GOLD BRICK _Brand Whitlock_ 91
Sketch of Brand Whitlock 111
VII. THE TRAVELLING SALESMAN
HIS MOTHER'S SON _Edna Ferber_ 117
Sketch of Edna Ferber 130
VIII. AFTER THE BIG STORE CLOSES
BITTER-SWEET _Fannie Hurst_ 135
Sketch of Fannie Hurst 166
IX. IN THE LUMBER COUNTRY
THE RIVERMAN _Stewart Edward White_173
Sketch of Stewart E. White 185
X. NEW ENGLAND GRANITE
FLINT AND FIRE _Dorothy Canfield_ 191
HOW "FLINT AND FIRE" STARTED AND GREW _Dorothy Canfield_ 210
Sketch of Dorothy Canfield 221
XI. DUSKY AMERICANS
THE ORDEAL AT MT. HOPE _Paul Laurence Dunbar_227
Sketch of Paul Laurence Dunbar 249
XII. WITH THE POLICE
ISRAEL DRAKE _Katherine Mayo_ 255
Sketch of Katherine Mayo 273
XIII. IN THE PHILIPPINES
THE STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
OF ISIDRO DE LOS MAESTROS _James M. Hopper_ 279
Sketch of James M. Hopper 295
XIV. THEY WHO BRING DREAMS TO AMERICA
THE CITIZEN _James F. Dwyer_ 299
Sketch of James F. Dwyer 318
XV. LIST OF AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 321
Classified by locality
XVI. NOTES AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 325
IN SCHOOL DAYS
_Are any days more rich in experiences than school days? The day one
first enters school, whether it is the little red schoolhouse or the big
brick building that holds a thousand pupils,--that day marks the
beginning of a new life. One of the best records in fiction of the world
of the school room is called_ EMMY LOU. _In this book George Madden
Martin has traced the progress of a winsome little maid from the first
grade to the end of high school. This is the story of the first days in
the strange new world of the school room._
THE RIGHT PROMETHEAN FIRE
BY
GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
Emmy Lou, laboriously copying digits, looked up. The boy sitting in line
in the next row of desks was making signs to her.
She had noticed the little boy before. He was a square little boy, with
a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of the nose and a cheerful
breadth of nostril. His teeth were wide apart, and his smile was broad
and constant. Not that Emmy Lou could have told all this. She only knew
that to her the knowledge of the little boy concerning the things
peculiar to the Primer World seemed limitless.
And now the little boy was beckoning Emmy Lou. She did not know him, but
neither did she know any of the seventy other little boys and girls
making the Primer Class.
Because of a popular prejudice against whooping-cough, Emmy Lou had not
entered the Primer Class until late. When she arrived, the seventy
little boys and girls were well along in Alphabetical lore, having long
since passed the a, b, c, of initiation, and become glibly eloquent to a
point where the l, m, n, o, p slipped off their tongues with the liquid
ease of repetition and familiarity.
"But Emmy Lou can catch up," said Emmy Lou's Aunt Cordelia, a plump and
cheery lady, beaming with optimistic placidity upon the infant populace
seated in parallel rows at desks before her.
Miss Clara, the teacher, lacked Aunt Cordelia's optimism, also her
plumpness. "No doubt she can," agreed Miss Clara, politely, but without
enthusiasm. Miss Clara had stepped from the graduating rostrum to the
schoolroom platform, and she had been there some years. And when one has
been there some years, and is already battling with seventy little boys
and girls, one cannot greet the advent of a seventy-first with acclaim.
Even the fact that one's hair is red is not an always sure indication
that one's temperament is sanguine also.
So in answer to Aunt Cordelia, Miss Clara replied politely but without
enthusiasm, "No doubt she can."
Then Aunt Cordelia went, and Miss Clara gave Emmy Lou a desk. And Miss
Clara then rapping sharply, and calling some small delinquent to order,
Emmy Lou's heart sank within her.
Now Miss Clara's tones were tart because she did not know what to do
with this late comer. In a class of seventy, spare time is not offering
for the bringing up of the backward. The way of the Primer teacher was
not made easy in a public school of twenty-five years ago.
So Miss Clara told the new pupil to copy digits.
Now what digits were, Emmy Lou had no idea, but being shown them on the
black-board, she copied them diligently. And as the time went on, Emmy
Lou went on copying digits. And her one endeavor being to avoid the
notice of Miss Clara, it happened the needs of Emmy Lou were frequently
lost sight of in the more assertive claims of the seventy.
Emmy Lou was not catching up, and it was January.
But to-day was to be different. The little boy was nodding and
beckoning. So far the seventy had left Emmy Lou alone. As a general
thing the herd crowds toward the leaders, and the laggard brings up the
rear alone.
But to-day the little boy was beckoning. Emmy Lou looked up. Emmy Lou
was pink-cheeked and chubby and in her heart there was no guile. There
was an ease and swagger about the little boy. And he always knew when to
stand up, and what for. Emmy Lou more than once had failed to stand up,
and Miss Clara's reminder had been sharp. It was when a bell rang one
must stand up. But what for, Emmy Lou never knew, until after the others
began to do it.
But the little boy always knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the
bench glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat.
To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou
was glad to have the little boy beckon her.
And in her heart there was no guile. That the little boy should be
holding out an end of a severed india-rubber band and inviting her to
take it, was no stranger than other things happening in the Primer World
every day.
The very manner of the infant classification breathed mystery, the sheep
from the goats, so to speak, the little girls all one side the central
aisle, the little boys all the other--and to over-step the line of
demarcation a thing too dreadful to contemplate.
Many things were strange. That one must get up suddenly when a bell
rang, was strange.
And to copy digits until one's chubby fingers, tightly gripping the
pencil, ached, and then to be expected to take a sponge and wash those
digits off, was strange.
And to be told crossly to sit down was bewildering, when in answer to c,
a, t, one said "Pussy." And yet there was Pussy washing her face, on the
chart, and Miss Clara's pointer pointing to her.
So when the little boy held out the rubber band across the aisle, Emmy
Lou took the proffered end.
At this the little boy slid back into his desk holding to his end. At
the critical moment of elongation the little boy let go. And the
property of elasticity is to rebound.
Emmy Lou's heart stood still. Then it swelled. But in her filling eyes
there was no suspicion, only hurt. And even while a tear splashed down,
and falling upon the laboriously copied digits, wrought havoc, she
smiled bravely across at the little boy. It would have made the little
boy feel bad to know how it hurt. So Emmy Lou winked bravely and smiled.
Whereupon the little boy wheeled about suddenly and fell to copying
digits furiously. Nor did he look Emmy Lou's way, only drove his pencil
into his slate with a fervor that made Miss Clara rap sharply on her
desk.
Emmy Lou wondered if the little boy was mad. One would think it had
stung the little boy and not her. But since he was not looking, she felt
free to let her little fist seek her mouth for comfort.
Nor did Emmy Lou dream, that across the aisle, remorse was eating into a
little boy's soul. Or that, along with remorse there went the image of
one Emmy Lou, defenceless, pink-cheeked, and smiling bravely.
The next morning Emmy Lou was early. She was always early. Since
entering the Primer Class, breakfast had lost its savor to Emmy Lou in
the terror of being late.
But this morning the little boy was there before her. Hitherto his tardy
and clattering arrival had been a daily happening, provocative of
accents sharp and energetic from Miss Clara.
But this morning he was at his desk copying from his Primer on to his
slate. The easy, ostentatious way in which he glanced from slate to book
was not lost upon Emmy Lou, who lost her place whenever her eyes left
the rows of digits upon the blackboard.
Emmy Lou watched the performance. And the little boy's pencil drove with
furious ease and its path was marked with flourishes. Emmy Lou never
dreamed that it was because she was watching that the little boy was
moved to this brilliant exhibition. Presently reaching the end of his
page, he looked up, carelessly, incidentally. It seemed to be borne to
him that Emmy Lou was there, whereupon he nodded. Then, as if moved by
sudden impulse, he dived into his desk, and after ostentatious search
in, on, under it, brought forth a pencil, and held it up for Emmy Lou to
see. Nor did she dream that it was for this the little boy had been
there since before Uncle Michael had unlocked the Primer door.
Emmy Lou looked across at the pencil. It was a slate-pencil. A fine,
long, new slate-pencil grandly encased for half its length in gold
paper. One bought them at the drug-store across from the school, and one
paid for them the whole of five cents.
Just then a bell rang. Emmy Lou got up suddenly. But it was the bell for
school to take up. So she sat down. She was glad Miss Clara was not yet
in her place.
After the Primer Class had filed in, with panting and frosty entrance,
the bell rang again. This time it was the right bell tapped by Miss
Clara, now in her place. So again Emmy Lou got up suddenly and by
following the little girl ahead learned that the bell meant, "go out to
the bench."
The Primer Class according to the degree of its infant precocity was
divided in three sections. Emmy Lou belonged to the third section. It
was the last section and she was the last one in it though she had no
idea what a section meant nor why she was in it.
Yesterday the third section had said, over and over, in chorus, "One and
one are two, two and two are four," etc.--but to-day they said, "Two and
one are three, two and two are four."
Emmy Lou wondered, four what? Which put her behind, so that when she
began again they were saying, "two and four are six." So now she knew.
Four is six. But what is six? Emmy Lou did not know.
When she came back to her desk the pencil was there. The fine, new, long
slate-pencil encased in gold paper. And the little boy was gone. He
belonged to the first section, and the first section was now on the
bench. Emmy Lou leaned across and put the pencil back on the little
boy's desk.
Then she prepared herself to copy digits with her stump of a pencil.
Emmy Lou's were always stumps. Her pencil had a way of rolling off her
desk while she was gone, and one pencil makes many stumps. The little
boy had generally helped her pick them up on her return. But strangely,
from this time, her pencils rolled off no more.
But when Emmy Lou took up her slate there was a whole side filled with
digits in soldierly rows across, so her heart grew light and free from
the weight of digits, and she gave her time to the washing of her desk,
a thing in which her soul revelled, and for which, patterning after her
little girl neighbors, she kept within that desk a bottle of soapy water
and rags of gray and unpleasant nature, that never dried, because of
their frequent using. When Emmy Lou first came to school, her cleaning
paraphernalia consisted of a sponge secured by a string to her slate,
which was the badge of the new and the unsophisticated comer. Emmy Lou
had quickly learned that, and no one rejoiced in a fuller assortment of
soap, bottle, and rags than she, nor did a sponge longer dangle from the
frame of her slate.
On coming in from recess this same day, Emmy Lou found the pencil on her
desk again, the beautiful new pencil in the gilded paper. She put it
back.
But when she reached home, the pencil, the beautiful pencil that costs
all of five cents, was in her companion box along with her stumps and
her sponge and her grimy little slate rags. And about the pencil was
wrapped a piece of paper. It had the look of the margin of a Primer
page. The paper bore marks. They were not digits.
Emmy Lou took the paper to Aunt Cordelia. They were at dinner.
"Can't you read it, Emmy Lou?" asked Aunt Katie, the prettiest aunty.
Emmy Lou shook her head.
"I'll spell the letters," said Aunt Louise, the youngest aunty.
But they did not help Emmy Lou one bit.
Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She doesn't seem to be catching up," she
said.
"No," said Aunt Katie.
"No," agreed Aunt Louise.
"Nor--on," said Uncle Charlie, the brother of the aunties, lighting up
his cigar to go downtown.
Aunt Cordelia spread the paper out. It bore the words:
"It is for you."
So Emmy Lou put the pencil away in the companion, and tucked it about
with the grimy slate rags that no harm might befall it. And the next day
she took it out and used it. But first she looked over at the little
boy. The little boy was busy. But when she looked up again, he was
looking.
The little boy grew red, and wheeling suddenly, fell to copying digits
furiously. And from that moment on the little boy was moved to strange
behavior.
Three times before recess did he, boldly ignoring the preface of
upraised hand, swagger up to Miss Clara's desk. And going and coming,
the little boy's boots with copper toes and run-down heels marked with
thumping emphasis upon the echoing boards his processional and
recessional. And reaching his desk, the little boy slammed down his
slate with clattering reverberations.
Emmy Lou watched him uneasily. She was miserable for him. She did not
know that there are times when the emotions are more potent than the
subtlest wines. Nor did she know that the male of some species is moved
thus to exhibition of prowess, courage, defiance, for the impressing of
the chosen female of the species.
Emmy Lou merely knew that she was miserable and that she trembled for
the little boy.
Having clattered his slate until Miss Clara rapped sharply, the little
boy rose and went swaggering on an excursion around the room to where
sat the bucket and dipper. And on his return he came up the center
aisle between the sheep and the goats.
Emmy Lou had no idea what happened. It took place behind her. But there
was another little girl who did. A little girl who boasted curls, yellow
curls in tiered rows about her head. A lachrymosal little girl, who
affected great horror of the little boys.
And what Emmy Lou failed to see was this: the little boy, in passing,
deftly lifted a cherished curl between finger and thumb and proceeded on
his way.
The little girl did not fail the little boy. In the suddenness of the
surprise she surprised even him by her outcry. Miss Clara jumped. Emmy
Lou jumped. And the sixty-nine jumped. And, following this, the little
girl lifted her voice in lachrymal lament.
Miss Clara sat erect. The Primer Class held its breath. It always held
its breath when Miss Clara sat erect. Emmy Lou held tightly to her desk
besides. She wondered what it was all about.
Then Miss Clara spoke. Her accents cut the silence.
"Billy Traver!"
Billy Traver stood forth. It was the little boy.
"Since you seem pleased to occupy yourself with the little girls, Billy,
_go to the pegs_!"
Emmy Lou trembled. "Go to the pegs!" What unknown, inquisitorial terrors
lay behind those dread, laconic words, Emmy Lou knew not.
She could only sit and watch the little boy turn and stump back down the
aisle and around the room to where along the wall hung rows of feminine
apparel.
Here he stopped and scanned the line. Then he paused before a hat. It
was a round little hat with silky nap and a curling brim. It had
rosettes to keep the ears warm and ribbon that tied beneath the chin. It
was Emmy Lou's hat. Aunt Cordelia had cautioned her to care concerning
it.
The little boy took it down. There seemed to be no doubt in his mind as
to what Miss Clara meant. But then he had been in the Primer Class from
the beginning.
Having taken the hat down he proceeded to put it upon his own shock
head. His face wore its broad and constant smile. One would have said
the little boy was enjoying the affair. As he put the hat on, the
sixty-nine laughed. The seventieth did not. It was her hat, and besides,
she did not understand.
Miss Clara still erect spoke again: "And now, since you are a little
girl, get your book, Billy, and move over with the girls."
Nor did Emmy Lou understand why, when Billy, having gathered his
belongings together, moved across the aisle and sat down with her, the
sixty-nine laughed again. Emmy Lou did not laugh. She made room for
Billy.
Nor did she understand when Billy treated her to a slow and
surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the
rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had
laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of
all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention
had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little
slate rag. When Billy returned the rag there was something in
it--something wrapped in a beautiful, glazed, shining bronze paper. It
was a candy kiss. One paid five cents for six of them at the drug-store.
On the road home, Emmy Lou ate the candy. The beautiful, shiny paper she
put in her Primer. The slip of paper that she found within she carried
to Aunt Cordelia. It was sticky and it was smeared. But it had reading
on it.
"But this is printing," said Aunt Cordelia; "can't you read it?"
Emmy Lou shook her head.
"Try," said Aunt Katie.
"The easy words," said Aunt Louise.
But Emmy Lou, remembering c-a-t, Pussy, shook her head.
Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She certainly isn't catching up," said
Aunt Cordelia. Then she read from the slip of paper:
"Oh, woman, woman, thou wert made
The peace of Adam to invade."
The aunties laughed, but Emmy Lou put it away with the glazed paper in
her Primer. It meant quite as much to her as did the reading in that
Primer: Cat, a cat, the cat. The bat, the mat, a rat. It was the jingle
to both that appealed to Emmy Lou.
About this time rumors began to reach Emmy Lou. She heard that it was
February, and that wonderful things were peculiar to the Fourteenth. At
recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines. The echoes
reached Emmy Lou.
The valentine must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing.
And to get no valentine was a dreadful--dreadful thing. And even the
timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats.
Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was she
to survive the contumely and shame?
You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your
valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to
prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things
reached Emmy Lou.
Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so grateful
did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine.
And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the
Fourteenth Day of February. The drug-store window was full of
valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see
them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a
valentine. And she would have to say, No.
She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she went
to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her wraps. Nor
did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through the crack of
the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room.
Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something
square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all
over flowers and scrolls.
Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink.
She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it.
Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door opened.
Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her book, for
since you must not--she would never show her valentine--never.
The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and Emmy
Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being able to
say it.
Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but no
one else might see it.
It rested heavy on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading on
it. She studied it surreptitiously. The reading was made up of letters.
It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She knew some of
the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did not know by
pointing them out on the chart at recess. Emmy Lou was learning. It was
the first time since she came to school.
But what did the letters make? She wondered, after recess, studying the
valentine again.
Then she went home. She followed Aunt Cordelia about. Aunt Cordelia was
busy.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou.
Aunt Cordelia listened.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "and e?"
"Be," said Aunt Cordelia.
If B was Be, it was strange that B and e were Be. But many things were
strange.
Emmy Lou accepted them all on faith.
After dinner she approached Aunt Katie.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, "m and y?"
"My," said Aunt Katie.
The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to copy
them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom was out
at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the other boy
was gone.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the
slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.
Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl,
and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.
Now she was alone, so she stopped.
"Get any valentines?"
"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's
friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it."
"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been
reading the long verses inside to me."
"Can you show them--valentines?" asked Emmy Lou.
"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl.
The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and the
aunties, sitting around, reading.
"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou.
They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it
came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to come
back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been forgotten.
Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing because of the
mother who would never come back, and looked troubled.
But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee.
In the valentine's center were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's forefinger
pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands.
"I can read it," said Emmy Lou.
They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked over
Aunt Cordelia's shoulder.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "e--Be."
The aunties nodded.
"M," said Emmy Lou, "y--my."
Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n,
e--Valentine. Be my Valentine."
"There!" said Aunt Cordelia.
"Well!" said Aunt Katie.
"At last!" said Aunt Louise.
"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie.
GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
In the South it is not unusual to give boys' names to girls, so it
happens that George is the real name of the woman who wrote _Emmy Lou_.
George Madden was born in Louisville, Kentucky, May 3, 1866. She
attended the public schools in Louisville, but on account of ill health
did not graduate. She married Atwood R. Martin, and they made their home
at Anchorage, a suburb of Louisville. Here in an old house surrounded by
great catalpa trees, with cardinals nesting in their branches, she was
recovering from an illness, and to pass the time began to write a short
story. The title was "How They Missed the Exposition"; when it was sent
away, and a check for seventy-five dollars came in payment, she was
encouraged to go on. Her next work was the series of stories entitled
_Emmy Lou, Her Book and Heart_. This at once took rank as one of the
classics of school-room literature. It had a wide popularity in this
country, and was translated into French and German. One of the pleasant
tributes paid to the book was a review in a Pittsburgh newspaper which
took the form of a letter to Emmy Lou. It ran in part as follows:
Dear Little Emmy Lou:
I have read your book, Emmy Lou, and am writing this letter to tell
you how much I love you. In my world of books I know a great
assembly of lovely ladies, Emmy Lou, crowned with beauty and
garlanded with grace, that have inspired poets to song and the
hearts of warriors to battle, but, Emmy Lou, I love you better than
them all, because you are the dearest little girl I ever met.
I felt very sorry for you when the little boy in the Primer World,
who could so glibly tell the teacher all about the mat and the bat
and the black rat and the fat hen, hurt your chubby fist by
snapping an india-rubber band. I do not think he atoned quite
enough when he gave you that fine new long slate pencil, nor when
he sent you your first valentine. No, he has not atoned quite
enough, Emmy Lou, but now that you are Miss McLaurin, you will
doubtless even the score by snapping the india-rubber band of your
disdain at his heart. But only to show him how it stings, and then,
of course, you'll make up for the hurt and be his valentine--won't
you, Emmy Lou?...
And when, at twelve years, you find yourself dreaming, Emmy Lou,
and watching the clouds through the schoolroom window, still I love
you, Emmy Lou, for your conscience, which William told about in his
essay. You remember, the two girls who met a cow.
"Look her right in the face and pretend we aren't afraid," said the
biggest girl. But the littlest girl--that was you--had a
conscience. "Won't it be deceiving the cow?" she wanted to know.
Brave, honest Emmy Lou!
Yes, I love you, Emmy Lou, better than all the proud and beauteous
heroines in the big grown-up books, because you are so sunshiny and
trustful, so sweet and brave--because you have a heart of gold,
Emmy Lou. And I want you to tell George Madden Martin how glad I am
that she has told us all about you, the dearest little girl since
Alice dropped down into Wonderland.
George Seibel.
The book is more than a delightful piece of fiction. Through its
faithful study of the development of a child's mind, and its criticism
of the methods employed in many schools, it becomes a valuable
contribution to education. As such it is used in the School of Pedagogy
of Harvard University.
George Madden Martin told more about Emmy Lou in a second book of
stories entitled _Emmy Lou's Road to Grace_, which relates the little
girl's experience at home and in Sunday school. Other works from her pen
are: _A Warwickshire Lad_, the story of William Shakespeare's early
life; _The House of Fulfillment_, a novel; _Abbie Ann_, a story for
children; _Letitia; Nursery Corps, U. S. A._, a story of a child, also
showing various aspects of army life; _Selina_, the story of a young
girl who has been brought up in luxury, and finds herself confronted
with the necessity of earning a living without any equipment for the
task. None of these has equalled the success of her first book, but that
is one of the few successful portrayals of child life in fiction.
JUST KIDS
_That part of New York City known as the East Side, the region south of
Fourteenth Street and east of Broadway, is the most densely populated
square mile on earth. Its people are of all races; Chinatown, Little
Hungary and Little Italy elbow each other; streets where the signs are
in Hebrew characters, theatres where plays are given in Yiddish, notices
in the parks in four or five languages, make one rub his eyes and wonder
if he is not in some foreign land. Into this region Myra Kelly went as a
teacher in the public school. Her pupils were largely Russian Jews, and
in a series of delightfully humorous stories she has drawn these little
citizens to the life._
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
BY
MYRA KELLY
Isaac Borrachsohn, that son of potentates and of Assemblymen, had been
taken to Central Park by a proud uncle. For weeks thereafter he was the
favorite bard of the First Reader Class and an exceeding great trouble
to its sovereign, Miss Bailey, who found him now as garrulous as he had
once been silent. There was no subject in the Course of Study to which
he could not correlate the wonders of his journey, and Teacher asked
herself daily and in vain whether it were more pedagogically correct to
encourage "spontaneous self-expression" or to insist upon "logically
essential sequence."
But the other members of the class suffered no such uncertainty. They
voted solidly for spontaneity in a self which found expression thus:
"Und in the Central Park stands a water-lake, und in the water-lake
stands birds--a big all of birds--und fishes. Und sooner you likes you
should come over the water-lake you calls a bird, und you sets on the
bird, und the bird makes go his legs, und you comes over the
water-lake."
"They could be awful polite birds," Eva Gonorowsky was beginning when
Morris interrupted with:
"I had once a auntie und she had a bird, a awful polite bird; on'y
sooner somebody calls him he _couldn't_ to come the while he sets in a
cage."
"Did he have a rubber neck?" Isaac inquired, and Morris reluctantly
admitted that he had not been so blessed.
"In the Central Park," Isaac went on, "all the birds is got rubber
necks."
"What color from birds be they?" asked Eva.
"All colors. Blue und white und red und yellow."
"Und green," Patrick Brennan interjected determinedly. "The green ones
is the best."
"Did you go once?" asked Isaac, slightly disconcerted.
"Naw, but I know. Me big brother told me."
"They could to be stylish birds, too," said Eva wistfully. "Stylish und
polite. From red und green birds is awful stylish for hats."
"But these birds is big. Awful big! Mans could ride on 'em und ladies
und boys."
"Und little girls, Ikey? Ain't they fer little girls?" asked the only
little girl in the group. And a very small girl she was, with a softly
gentle voice and darkly gentle eyes fixed pleadingly now upon the bard.
"Yes," answered Isaac grudgingly; "sooner they sets by somebody's side
little girls could to go. But sooner nobody holds them by the hand they
could to have fraids over the rubber-neck-boat-birds und the water-lake,
und the fishes."
"What kind from fishes?" demanded Morris Mogilewsky, monitor of Miss
Bailey's gold fish bowl, with professional interest.
"From gold fishes und red fishes und black fishes"--Patrick stirred
uneasily and Isaac remembered--"und green fishes; the green ones is the
biggest; and blue fishes und _all_ kinds from fishes. They lives way
down in the water the while they have fraids over the
rubber-neck-boat-birds. Say--what you think? Sooner a
rubber-neck-boat-bird needs he should eat he longs down his neck und
eats a from-gold fish."
"'Out fryin'?" asked Eva, with an incredulous shudder.
"Yes, 'out fryin'. Ain't I told you little girls could to have fraids
over 'em? Boys could have fraids too," cried Isaac; and then spurred by
the calm of his rival, he added: "The rubber-neck-boat-birds they
hollers somethin' fierce."
"I wouldn't be afraid of them. Me pop's a cop," cried Patrick stoutly.
"I'd just as lief set on 'em. I'd like to."
"Ah, but you ain't seen 'em, und you ain't heard 'em holler," Isaac
retorted.
"Well, I'm goin' to. An' I'm goin' to see the lions an' the tigers an'
the el'phants, an' I'm goin' to ride on the water-lake."
"Oh, how I likes I should go too!" Eva broke out. "O-o-oh, _how_ I likes
I should look on them things! On'y I don't know do I need a ride on
somethings what hollers. I don't know be they fer me."
"Well, I'll take ye with me if your mother leaves you go," said Patrick
grandly. "An' ye can hold me hand if ye're scared."
"Me too?" implored Morris. "Oh, Patrick, c'n I go too?"
"I guess so," answered the Leader of the Line graciously. But he turned
a deaf ear to Isaac Borrachsohn's implorings to be allowed to join the
party. Full well did Patrick know of the grandeur of Isaac's holiday
attire and the impressionable nature of Eva's soul, and gravely did he
fear that his own Sunday finery, albeit fashioned from the blue cloth
and brass buttons of his sire, might be outshone.
At Eva's earnest request, Sadie, her cousin, was invited, and Morris
suggested that the Monitor of the Window Boxes should not be slighted by
his colleagues of the gold fish and the line. So Nathan Spiderwitz was
raised to Alpine heights of anticipation by visions of a window box "as
big as blocks and streets," where every plant, in contrast to his lanky
charges, bore innumerable blossoms. Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein was
unanimously nominated as a member of the expedition; by Patrick, because
they were neighbors at St. Mary's Sunday-school; by Morris, because they
were classmates under the same rabbi at the synagogue; by Nathan,
because Ignatius Aloysius was a member of the "Clinton Street gang"; by
Sadie, because he had "long pants sailor suit"; by Eva, because the
others wanted him.
Eva reached home that afternoon tingling with anticipation and
uncertainty. What if her mother, with one short word, should close
forever the gates of joy and boat-birds? But Mrs. Gonorowsky met her
small daughter's elaborate plea with the simple question:
"Who pays you the car-fare?"
"Does it need car-fare to go?" faltered Eva.
"Sure does it," answered her mother. "I don't know how much, but some it
needs. Who pays it?"
"Patrick ain't said."
"Well, you should better ask him," Mrs. Gonorowsky advised, and, on the
next morning, Eva did. She thereby buried the leader under the ruins of
his fallen castle of clouds, but he struggled through them with the
suggestion that each of his guests should be her, or his, own banker.
"But ain't you got _no_ money 't all?" asked the guest of honor.
"Not a cent," responded the host. "But I'll get it. How much have you?"
"A penny. How much do I need?"
"I don't know. Let's ask Miss Bailey."
School had not yet formally begun and Teacher was reading. She was
hardly disturbed when the children drove sharp elbows into her shoulder
and her lap, and she answered Eva's--"Miss Bailey--oh, Missis Bailey,"
with an abstracted--"Well, dear?"
"Missis Bailey, how much money takes car-fare to the Central Park?"
Still with divided attention, Teacher replied--"Five cents, honey," and
read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made
embarrassing explanations with admirable tact.
There ensued weeks of struggle and economy for the exploring party, to
which had been added a chaperon in the large and reassuring person of
Becky Zalmonowsky, the class idiot. Sadie Gonorowsky's careful mother
had considered Patrick too immature to bear the whole responsibility,
and he, with a guile which promised well for his future, had complied
with her desires and preserved his own authority unshaken. For Becky,
poor child, though twelve years old and of an aspect eminently
calculated to inspire trust in those who had never held speech with her,
was a member of the First Reader Class only until such time as room
could be found for her in some of the institutions where such
unfortunates are bestowed.
Slowly and in diverse ways each of the children acquired the essential
nickel. Some begged, some stole, some gambled, some bartered, some
earned, but their greatest source of income, Miss Bailey, was denied to
them. For Patrick knew that she would have insisted upon some really
efficient guardian from a higher class, and he announced with much heat
that he would not go at all under those circumstances.
At last the leader was called upon to set the day and appointed a
Saturday in late May. He was disconcerted to find that only Ignatius
Aloysius would travel on that day.
"It's holidays, all Saturdays," Morris explained; "und we dassent to
ride on no cars."
"Why not?" asked Patrick.
"It's law, the rabbi says," Nathan supplemented. "I don't know why is
it; on'y rides on holidays ain't fer us."
"I guess," Eva sagely surmised; "I guess rubber-neck-boat-birds rides
even ain't fer us on holidays. But I don't know do I need rides on birds
what hollers."
"You'll be all right," Patrick assured her. "I'm goin' to let ye hold me
hand. If ye can't go on Saturday, I'll take ye on Sunday--next Sunday.
Yous all must meet me here on the school steps. Bring yer money and
bring yer lunch too. It's a long way and ye'll be hungry when ye get
there. Ye get a terrible long ride for five cents."
"Does it take all that to get there?" asked the practical Nathan. "Then
how are we goin' to get back?"
Poor little poet soul! Celtic and improvident! Patrick's visions had
shown him only the triumphant arrival of his host and the beatific joy
of Eva as she floated by his side on the most "fancy" of boat-birds. Of
the return journey he had taken no thought. And so the saving and
planning had to be done all over again. The struggle for the first
nickel had been wearing and wearying, but the amassment of the second
was beyond description difficult. The children were worn from long
strife and many sacrifices, for the temptations to spend six or nine
cents are so much more insistent and unusual than are yearnings to
squander lesser sums. Almost daily some member of the band would confess
a fall from grace and solvency, and almost daily Isaac Borrachsohn was
called upon to descant anew upon the glories of the Central Park. Becky,
the chaperon, was the most desultory collector of the party. Over and
over she reached the proud heights of seven or even eight cents, only to
lavish her hoard on the sticky joys of the candy cart of Isidore
Belchatosky's papa or on the suddy charms of a strawberry soda.
Then tearfully would she repent of her folly, and bitterly would the
others upbraid her, telling again of the joys and wonders she had
squandered. Then loudly would she bewail her weakness and plead in
extenuation: "I seen the candy. Mouses from choc'late und Foxy Gran'pas
from sugar--und I ain't never seen no Central Park."
"But don't you know how Isaac says?" Eva would urge. "Don't you know how
all things what is nice fer us stands in the Central Park? Say, Isaac,
you should better tell Becky, some more, how the Central Park stands."
And Isaac's tales grew daily more wild and independent of fact until the
little girls quivered with yearning terror and the boys burnished up
forgotten cap pistols. He told of lions, tigers, elephants, bears, and
buffaloes, all of enormous size and strength of lung, so that before
many days had passed he had debarred himself, by whole-hearted lying,
from the very possibility of joining the expedition and seeing the
disillusionment of his public. With true artistic spirit he omitted all
mention of confining house or cage and bestowed the gift of speech upon
all the characters, whether brute or human, in his epic. The
merry-go-round he combined with the menagerie into a whole which was not
to be resisted.
"Und all the am'blins," he informed his entranced listeners; "they goes
around, und around, und around, where music plays und flags is. Und I
sets a lion und he runs around, und runs around, und runs around.
Say--what you think? He had smiling looks und hair on the neck, und
sooner he says like that 'I'm awful thirsty,' I gives him a peanut und I
gets a golden ring."
"Where is it?" asked the jealous and incredulous Patrick.
"To my house." Isaac valiantly lied, for well he remembered the scene in
which his scandalized but sympathetic uncle had discovered his attempt
to purloin the brass ring which, with countless blackened duplicates, is
plucked from a slot by the brandishing swords of the riders upon the
merry-go-round. Truly, its possession had won him another ride--this
time upon an elephant with upturned trunk and wide ears--but in his mind
the return of that ring still ranked as the only grief in an otherwise
perfect day.
Miss Bailey--ably assisted by AEsop, Rudyard Kipling, and Thompson
Seton--had prepared the First Reader Class to accept garrulous and
benevolent lions, cows, panthers, and elephants, and the exploring
party's absolute credulity encouraged Isaac to higher and yet higher
flights, until Becky was strengthened against temptation.
At last, on a Sunday in late June, the cavalcade in splendid raiment met
on the wide steps, boarded a Grand Street car, and set out for Paradise.
Some confusion occurred at the very beginning of things when Becky
Zalmonowsky curtly refused to share her pennies with the conductor. When
she was at last persuaded to yield, an embarrassing five minutes was
consumed in searching for the required amount in the nooks and crannies
of her costume where, for safe-keeping, she had cached her fund. One
penny was in her shoe, another in her stocking, two in the lining of her
hat, and one in the large and dilapidated chatelaine bag which dangled
at her knees.
Nathan Spiderwitz, who had preserved absolute silence, now contributed
his fare, moist and warm, from his mouth, and Eva turned to him
admonishingly.
"Ain't Teacher told you money in the mouth ain't healthy fer you?" she
sternly questioned, and Nathan, when he had removed other pennies, was
able to answer:
"I washed 'em off--first." And they were indeed most brightly clean.
"There's holes in me these here pockets," he explained, and promptly
corked himself anew with currency.
"But they don't tastes nice, do they?" Morris remonstrated. Nathan shook
a corroborative head. "Und," the Monitor of the Gold Fish further urged,
"you could to swallow 'em und then you couldn't never to come by your
house no more."
But Nathan was not to be dissuaded, even when the impressionable and
experimental Becky tried his storage system and suffered keen discomfort
before her penny was restored to her by a resourceful fellow traveler
who thumped her right lustily on the back until her crowings ceased and
the coin was once more in her hand.
At the meeting of Grand Street with the Bowery, wild confusion was made
wilder by the addition of seven small persons armed with transfers and
clamoring--all except Nathan--for Central Park. Two newsboys and a
policeman bestowed them upon a Third Avenue car and all went well until
Patrick missed his lunch and charged Ignatius Aloysius with its
abstraction. Words ensued which were not easily to be forgotten even
when the refreshment was found--flat and horribly distorted--under the
portly frame of the chaperon.